Magic isn't Olympian

Magic Johnson in the Olympics? Absolutely not! Americans have always regarded our Olympic athletes as role models for our boys and girls, which Magic definitely is not.

Let him use his energies and money setting up a trust fund of a few million to pay the medical bills of the women he may have infected.

Graham R. Hodges

Liverpool, N.Y.

Go, St. Louis; go, Charlotte

Here's to St. Louis and Charlotte. I am sure they don't treat their fans the way Herb Belgrad treated us.

He ran an ad in The Baltimore Sun back in the later part of the summer. We mailed a postcard requesting five tickets to the Saints-Dolphins game scheduled for August 1992. We then received an order form on Dec. 13, 1991. On Dec. 14, we mailed a check to cover the cost of the tickets. Having mailed the money eight months in advance of the game, we were expecting good seats.

On Jan. 23, we received five tickets in the worst possible section of Memorial Stadium. While watching the news that same evening, we learned that seats were still available on and around the 50-yard line.

My wife and her parents were season-ticket holders for the Baltimore Colts from their inception. But you can bet we won't be season-ticket holders for any future football team in Baltimore!

George & Yvonne Wright Catonsville

Questions for Belgrad

Why wasn't the plan to fill Saints-Dolphins orders on a random location basis explained to the sports fans of Baltimore before these problems started? And why did the letter accompanying my ticket read: "The tickets you have received were the best available at the time they were pulled"?

As to Stan White's argument made on Jan. 24 on Sports Line that "the game is what's important and not where you sit" -- I say that it is erroneous. What's important are the fans and we deserve to be treated with respect and honesty.

John P. Hasenauer

Baltimore

. . . and still another upset fan

The handling of the ticket allocation for the August Dolphins-Saints football game was totally unfair to the true football fans who showed their support for a team in Baltimore by purchasing a ticket as soon as advanced tickets went on sale.

Holding eight seats in UPPER RESERVE, SECTION 38, ROW 26, near the end zone, I hope I don't get a nosebleed or require oxygen!

Terry Zemanski

Glen Arm

Memorable Memorial night

Curiosity made me stop at the stadium around noon on Friday. A fan in line told me that he arrived 7:30 a.m. and was 11th in line. Music was blasting and a touch football game was being played on the parking lot. I knew then that I had to be a part of this.

I went home to dress for the occasion and returned at 3 o'clock. My nieces brought me more clothing, food, a TV, umbrella, you name it and they had it for me. My daughter and son-in-law came at 10 p.m. to keep me company and they stayed all night. I told them that this is something they could tell their children about.

In line I met a bunch of good down-to-earth people.

I tip my hat to the security people. Those guys wearing stadium event jackets did a good job. They checked on the crowd periodically and even were poking the people sleeping to make sure they were still moving in the cold temperature.

Yes, it was a night to remember when a bunch of fanatic football fans showed the country that football isn't dead yet in this great city of Baltimore!

Bob Szulczewski,

Tom & Alyssa Hartman

Pasadena

Favor season-ticket holders

If I were not a 13-game mini-plan Orioles season-ticket holder, I would be pleased with the new plan for the sale of Opening Day tickets. The increase in the number of tickets available to the public and their lottery-style distribution would give me a much better chance of getting Opening Day tickets, especially if I were unable to spend the night before tickets go on sale camping out at the stadium.

But where did those 2,000 more tickets come from? Camden Yards has 5,771 fewer seats than Memorial Stadium (source: insert on One Last Look, Memorial Stadium, The Baltimore Sun, 1991). I think that they were subtracted from the number of tickets allotted for sale to the season-ticket holders.

For me, one of the enticing aspects of being a season-ticket holder was that I was guaranteed the opportunity to purchase tickets to those special games, or so I thought. And I am beginning only my fourth year as a season-ticket holder. What about the people who have had their seats for decades? If they call us "valued customers" (letter from Orioles ticket manager Audrey Brown, Jan. 9, 1992), then they should treat us as such.

Karen Whitbeck

Dunkirk

Average fans get boot

A big thumbs up to the man from Silver Spring (Jan. 19). I, too, have held a Sunday mini-plan since 1988 and never until this season had problems getting Opening Day tickets.

But this year I called and was told I, too, could enter a lottery for 4,000 remaining seats to be sold to the public. I was told by an Orioles representative that the other tickets were being sold to full-season and 29-game plan holders. I asked him if this was supposed to mean that in a park that was due to hold 46,000, that 42,000 full-season and 29-game plans were sold. Needless to say, he could not answer.

I wonder if Eli Jacobs and Roland Hemond know how the true fans, no matter how large or small their ticket plans are, are being pushed out to make way for those who know people in the right places.

Joe D'Antonio

Glen Burnie

Leave Dunbar alone

Here we go again! In John Eisenberg's column on Jan. 18, titled, "Travel puts Dunbar out of class by itelf," he suggests that the Dunbar Poets, all young, black positive-directed males, are being shortchanged by missing quality time from the classroom.

In my opinion, the first point that should be made is how a white male sports columnist, who cares nothing for the well-being of our black kids, is trying to trash their spirit by writing such a negative article.

The Dunbar kids are being properly supervised by responsible school leaders in their academics, from the principal's mentoring by the coaches, and adult volunteers.

There seems never to be a negative word written about white private-school athletic programs or the young white tennis kids on the national tennis circuits, who are high school age that receive tutoring and are missing school days.

I am not a Dunbar High School graduate, but I surely share the sense of pride that they bring to the black community, the city and state, and most surely to themselves.

Edward R. Colbert

Baltimore

Where are the fights?

In your coverage of the Iran Barkley-Darrin Van Horn title fight, shown recently on pay-per-view television, you had this to say: "."

What is going on? Is the result of a world championship fight not news?

Richard J. Hervert

Aberdeen